关注公共卫生的参议员发问：特朗普和肯尼迪之后会怎样？
A Public Health-Minded Senator Asks: What Comes After Trump and Kennedy?
前参议院卫生委员会主席帕蒂·默里参议员正在组建一支专家小组， examination如何将疾病控制中心（C.D.C.)与政治干预隔离开来。
Senator Patty Murray, a former chair of the Senate health committee, is forming a group of experts to examine how to insulate the C.D.C. from political interference.
华盛顿州民主党参议员帕蒂·默里在新冠疫情期间担任参议院卫生委员会主席，上周致电疾病控制中心（C.D.C.)的新主任，询问该机构为何拒绝报告宾夕法尼亚州的几例麻疹死亡病例。
Senator Patty Murray, a Washington State Democrat who chaired the Senate health committee during the coronavirus pandemic, called the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week to ask why the agency had refused to report several measles deaths in Pennsylvania.
这场疫情将全国公共卫生机构卷入政治纷争的中心。民主党参议员乔什·沙皮罗州长去年八月表示，麻疹已导致该州至少两人死亡。卫生部长罗伯特·F·肯尼迪·托尼（Robert F. Kennedy Jr.） oversight C.D.C.，暗示州长的工作人员可能“伪造”了死亡人数，并称患者是在宾夕法尼亚州因麻疹去世的，但并非因为麻疹。
The outbreak has landed the nation’s public health agency in the middle of a political feud. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said in August that measles had killed two people in his state. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the C.D.C., suggested that the governor’s staff might have “fabricated” the deaths, and that patients had died in Pennsylvania with measles — but not from it.
该机构主任埃里卡·施瓦茨博士（Dr. Erica Schwartz）告诉参议员默里说，C.D.C.正在与州级流行病学家合作，起草更为精确的麻疹死亡定义。
The agency’s director, Dr. Erica Schwartz, told Ms. Murray that the C.D.C. was working with state epidemiologists to draft a more precise definition of a measles death, the senator said.
默里参议员表示震惊。在接受采访时，她回忆道：“这么做的目的是什么？”她向施瓦茨博士提问。“在我心目中，这是要掩盖人们的死亡人数。”施瓦茨博士拒绝对这次交谈发表评论。卫生与人类服务部的一名发言人表示，C.D.C.希望“确保麻疹死亡病例在全国范围内得到一致的分类和报告”。
Ms. Murray was appalled, she said in an interview. “What is the goal of that?” she recalled asking Dr. Schwartz. “In my mind it’s to obscure how many people are dying.”Dr. Schwartz declined to comment on the exchange. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services said that the C.D.C. wants to “ensure measles deaths are classified and reported consistently” across the country.
对默里参议员来说，这次谈话是另一个例子，说明全国的卫生机构， including C.D.C.，曾被视为世界“金标准”，已受到党派政治的影响。现在，她和公共卫生领导人正在制定策略，以修复 damage once Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Trump leave office。
To Ms. Murray, the conversation was another example of how the nation’s health agencies, including the C.D.C., once regarded as the world’s “gold standard,” have been hobbled by partisan politics. Now, she and public health leaders are charting strategies to repair the damage once Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Trump leave office.